


Joined Souls

by Saberian_Dream



Category: Birdy the Mighty (OVAs), Birdy the Mighty: Decode (elements), Dragon Ball Z
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Friendship/Love, Sharing a Body
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-08-13 15:08:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20176309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saberian_Dream/pseuds/Saberian_Dream
Summary: One night, while on his way home, Gohan spots a battle taking place in the city below, and wanting to help out, is soon hit headfirst with destiny when he finds himself killed by a mysterious space officer. And then things really begin changing for him.





	1. The Accident

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GohanLSSJ2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GohanLSSJ2/gifts), [PrismBunny90](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrismBunny90/gifts).

> The events of this story will follow the Birdy the Mighty OVAs and not Decode.

_Two weeks after the Cell Games_

A large explosion suddenly disrupted the otherwise calm night air, sending the tailed boy soaring through the velvet expanse dotted by points of white stars into a tailspin as he jerked from shock, but then he shook himself back into a stabilized altitude, and shot his gaze to the general direction from which the blast had issued.

He was passing not that far off from a city beneath him, centered perhaps a couple of hundred kilometers away to his left, and what he observed immediately caught his notice, for a circular-shaped dome of yellow destructive energy geysered forth from the urbanscape below, and even at this distance it was quite apparent that many lives had been lost with property wrecked, steel support beams twisted into blackened husks of metal and sheetrock burst wide open like a ripe melon with fires rapidly spreading in the wake of the detonation.

"What in the world?" he gasped. "What happened? Oh my God, all those people! There must be something I could do to help out!"

And with his mind now made up, the adolescent youth turned on a dime and plummeted towards the site of the thunderous blast. As the metropolitan sprawl grew closer and closer in his line of vision, without warning, another explosion erupted before him and several more in a series of colossal discharges that he instantly recognized from his personal history.

"Powerful attacks!" he cried, then frowned, shutting his eyes as he stretched out with his energy-sensing abilities, to confirm something he had started to suspect with this latest incident, and only a moment later his eyes shot back open again. "Yeah, just as I thought, there's two very strong fighters duking it out down there! _The idiots!_ How could they do something this reckless in such a crowded area?! Too many innocent bystanders are gonna get killed! Well, not if I have anything to say about it!"

And, with a determined scowl, the furious child descended upon the unsuspecting city below that seemed to have become ground zero for a new wave of deadly battles, unaware of the imminent fate quickly approaching him at faster than light speeds...

* * *

The man ran, and spun around, his neck and lower jaw inflating up into radically insane proportions like a frog puffing out its mouth, and fired off another red blast that caught a couple nearby buildings, which collapsed under the power of the detonation, and landed catlike upon his shoes, then spun about and bolted off in the other direction as rapidly as his two feet could carry him.

His mind was filled with terror, for he now found himself in a very deadly game of cat and mouse, but, unfortunately for him, he was in the _very_ unenviable position of being the prey and not the predator as he usually was. Ducking past a corner he shot off down the deserted boulevard, passing by storefronts and blaring advertisements at breakneck pace until he came upon an alleyway and slipped inside, hoping to gain sanctuary from his pursuer in the confined space.

With his breathing labored the curious man flopped back against the brick wall, sliding down the rough-hewn surface as his urgent panting largely subsided, and he soon was able to suck in oxygen more cleanly than he had done just a moment prior. Turning a glance to the street which he had just departed, the inflatable man found, to his great bewilderment that a young boy had just touched down onto the pavement.

"What a mess..." he sighed tiredly and then pivoted his head about from left to right — as if searching for something. "Hey, whoever you are, show yourself! I know you're responsible for this destruction!"

However, the boy's voice and forceful command wasn't quite what was on the man, Geega's mind at the moment for as he had swung about to gain a greater glimpse of the environment that he'd landed in, he caught sight of a brown, furred monkey's tail sticking out from the seat of the boy's pants, and he gasped in silent horror.

_A Saiyan!_ he whispered to himself. _But... but, I thought they were all wiped out!_ But then, suddenly, memories of a conversation he had had years earlier flashed past his brain and he winced from a fresh sense of dawning terror. _No... it can't be! There were rumors of a gang of Saiyans from the Planet Earth who'd played a pivotal role with the downfall of Lord Frieza on Namek, but... no, surely that small punk can't be one of them! There's no way my luck is _that_ bad!_

Suddenly his head shot towards the small alley Geega found himself hiding in, and he covered up his mouth to prevent a scream from escaping his lips.

_It's all right..._ he tried to reassure himself. _There is no way he could know that I'm in here. I don't see a Scouter anywhere on this boy. Stay calm, stay calm... don't panic..._

And then, the tailed child's next words shouted loud and clear to the night chilled his blood and sent a renewed surge of utter terror racing through his body so that he was practically shaking where he stood.

"Hey, you there!" he called out. "Yeah, you! I know you're hiding in that little alley over there! Come out and face me right now or I'm coming in there after you!"

_Oh... no..._ Geega whimpered internally. _Shit... he knows where I am! But how in the universe is that possible? How could he have pinpointed my position so precisely without the use of some sort of technology?_

"Last chance!" And to punctuate his statement, the sound of shoe soles crunching noisily upon the concrete accompanied his words. "If you don't come out now, then ready or not I'm coming to see whether or not you're the one behind the death of all these innocent people!"

And Geega found himself left with few options.

_What the hell am I supposed to do now?_ he contemplated fast and furiously. _He _has_ to be one of those Saiyans who defeated Frieza! It's the only explanation! How the hell do I get away from here now?! If he actually can locate me without a Scouter then nowhere on this whole damned planet is safe for me! Wait, hold on a second! "Innocent people?" He cares about the bugs who infest this planet? That's not like a Saiyan at all!_ And here a menacing smile crossed over Geega's features. _Oh but how terribly convenient for me._ He chuckled sinisterly to himself. _Yes... I think I can use this to my advantage, and kill two birds with one stone..._

As the steady approach of the boy's footsteps increased in volume, Geega returned to his feet, resolute, and turned about on his heel to face the mouth of the alley, as he spread his palms wide, and stepped out of the shadows to confront the apparent Saiyan warrior which he found himself dealing with.

The boy, Gohan, reacted as a man emerged from the darkened corridor, and instantly dropped in a defensive battle posture.

"So you finally came out," he observed coldly. "Tell me, are you the one responsible for what's happened here? Answer — right now!"

Geega shook his head frantically, putting on a good display of false innocence to the point that silently he felt he should be presented an award for his fine acting skills — why, if his pursuer wasn't keen on his true nature, he honestly doubted that even she would be able to see through the professional-caliber performance he was giving!

"No, no, no, no, you've got it all wrong, kid!" he belted out, with an apparent real undercurrent of fear to his tone that had Gohan feeling confused, and he clearly hesitated. "It wasn't me! It was... it was a monster! A monster, yeah!"

"A monster?" Gohan said skeptically.

Geega nodded empathically. "Yes, a monster! A really bad monster that's been chasing me for a long time now! He was the one who ruined the city, not me!"

And sensing he might need something more to make his role of terrified innocent bystander more convincing, he rushed forward and grabbed hold of the Saiyan boy's shoulders, desperately shaking them about where he stood as he rambled incoherently, letting _true_ terror filter through his mouth, like he had done before, all the better to persuade the youth he _was_ just as afraid as he seemed.

"Please, boy, you gotta help me!" Geega implored urgently. "Please! Don't let it find me, and whatever you do, don't make it angry! You've _seen_ what happens when he gets angry! Look at all those buildings! Please, you gotta hide me! PLEASE!"

And the half-hybrid shook off his hands like a dog rinsing itself clean of water, though his skull had tightened into a determined glare, and he nodded at the other man, who struggled to contain his smugness.

"Hey, whoa — don't worry, mister!" he said confidently. "If there _is_ a monster roaming about here, well, I'll deal with it, just you watch!"

Geega shook his head, seemingly in denial, injecting as much raw terror into his voice as he could so that on the outside he sounded, if anything, even _more_ scared than he had not even a moment ago.

"You... you don't know what you're talking about, kid!" he cried frantically. "The monster, he's coming! We don't have any hope of defeating it! Our only chance is to run and call the authorities!"

"Don't worry... I'm a lot stronger than I look," Gohan reassured him, even while Geega suppressed a triumphant smirk. "Trust me, mister, if we come across the monster, I'll protect you. I give you my word on that."

"I... I-I don't kn-know why, but... I believe you..." Geega stammered. "All right th-then... j-j-just don't wander too far, okay?! Don't leave me all alone!"

Gohan nodded again, and moved off deeper into the city, with the deceitful hunter all but patting himself on the back for a job well done as even now, he maintained the façade of pure helplessness, trembling and wincing violently as they passed small crowds of stunned citizens while the half-Saiyan led him down streets and past various human structures, through flashing colored lights, his ever watchful gaze scanning to and fro for any signs of Geega's alleged "monster."

Finally, once Geega felt he could take it no more, that perhaps his speculation had gone wrong, and she'd moved on to another area in search of him, his plan looked to at last bear fruit as a large explosion detonated not a dozen yards in front of them, and Gohan held up an arm to cover his eyes.

"All right — that's it!" he barked passionately. "You're going down! You'll pay for all of the innocent people you killed here tonight!"

Holding back a laugh, Geega realized that would be premature, for right now the most crucial thing was to stretch outward, with all of his senses, his hearing, and intuition, and even his eyesight, to attempt to gauge the general direction _she_ would be coming from — without that his scheme would be for naught! He strained to listen, to calculate it quickly without giving it away to the boy standing next to him, and was rewarded with the noisy crunching of approaching footsteps.

Geega tensed, preparing himself for his move. _I need to be quick..._

There was the sound of cracking knuckles, and, suddenly, a feminine voice wafted out from the night from around the corner to the building they stood beside, which surprised Gohan, and he momentarily lifted his eyebrows in astonishment as he temporarily dropped his guard.

_This is it!_ he crowed silently, knowing he would never get a more perfect opportunity to strike than the one staring into him now.

"There's no way out from this now, Geega!" she promised.

"It..." Gohan said perplexedly. "It sounds like a... a woman..."

And suddenly, with desperate speed born from a frantic desire to continue living, Geega plunged forward and, reacting far faster than Gohan could process it latched onto the scruff of his neck-warmer and leapt out from the corner as he tossed the Saiyan at the new arrival with as much energy as he could muster.

The boy hurled at her as if he had been shot out of a projectile, and reacting equally quick, the woman caught the flying boy and, without even pausing to consider the ramifications of her actions, unleashed as much electrical power into his body as she could, and to his immense shock, Gohan could hear somebody screaming, though by the time that it even could've been possible for him to realize that it was _himself_, he was savagely electrocuted, and outwardly, reduced to, visibly, nothing more than a formerly living cooked hamburger.

And all of him went black as he knew nothing at all...

* * *

Birdy, as beautifully deadly as ever dressed in her skintight battle outfit, took the moment to calm her breathing and savor the victory she felt flooding throughout her bloodstream, expecting to witness the charred and lifeless remains of Geega staring her back in the face... only to discover, to her complete horror, that she clutched at a seemingly random, nondescript boy who appeared to be in his early adolescence, with shaggy black hair, and blank eyes gazing back into her own, in apparent mockery, taunting her in silent judgment as a wave of horrified guilt replaced the surge of triumph she had felt.

"What the?!" she exclaimed. "Oh no, what have I done?!"

And just then, scornful laughter rang through the night, and she lowered the corpse she held to spot Geega standing there across the way, wearing a posture of pure and utter triumph, as if their roles had somehow been reversed, and it was only _now_, _far_ too late to change her actions, that Birdy fleetingly realized how she'd been suckered, and fallen right into Geega's trap.

_He used an innocent bystander as a shield!_ she berated herself with numb shock, too stunned as well as disgusted with herself to even put down the unmoving body. _The bastard! How could he do something like that?!_

"Birdy!" he announced grandly. "It seems like you've just killed a civilian! I wonder what your superiors shall think of this! If I had to place a bet, I'd say your career in the Galactic Patrol is finished!"

And he pivoted and leapt off into the night, still laughing.

"Don't bother catching up!" he jeered. "Worry about yourself!"

Still too shocked to even so much as attempt to follow, Birdy turned her eyes back to peer down upon the fried youth and felt herself to be somewhat at odds to how to proceed, for nothing in her training with the Galactic Patrol could have prepared her for the total contempt she held for herself at the moment.

"How could I be so reckless?!" she wondered out loud. And then, suddenly, as her gaze drifted downward while she remained lost in thought, something yanked her full attention back to reality and she found for a second, a strange kind of desensitized curiosity welling within her. "Wait, what is that...?"

She shifted the position of the body a bit, and to her total bewilderment, as he was swung over, the smoking ashes of what appeared to have been a monkey tail caught her focus. _He, he has a tail? But humans don't have tails! Wait, tail? Earth?_ The full weight of Birdy's actions now consumed her with a vengeance as she dropped the boy to the pavement, looking more appalled than she could've imagined possible for her grievous error and aloud she couldn't help but yell out for the surrounding landscape to realize the enormous depths of her crime, as if seeking judgment and absolution, that:

"Oh no! I killed one of the Saiyans who beat Frieza!"

* * *

He floated to weightlessly, drifting through a vague, non-corporeal space that felt to only exist in his own consciousness, as abstract and unreal as the distant galaxies were. He could just recall bits and pieces from his own life, flashes of pitched battle, a face belonging to whom had meant an important deal to him in his previous life there, but ultimately, how or where he had come to this blissful state of apparently nonexistence was beyond him, and past his ability to question or comprehend, even though logically a small part of his intangible mind was faintly aware this was nothing like his dad's descriptions of the Other World.

And then through the void came voices, reverberating through him as if he were a violin being plucked by a maestro performing on stage.

_He appears to be ten or so,_ a feminine voice drawled. _About five years ago, he would have been five. It has to be. He has just _got_ to be one of the Saiyans who took down Frieza. I... I can't believe I'd actually run into one. We always thought they were just a legend..._

_It is as you say..._ another, male voice answered back. _He would have been much too young to challenge Frieza at such an age. That said, he could be related to them. But for as fascinating his bloodlines and his origins may be, however, is a secondary concern, and more to the important, entirely irrelevant. You've made a grievous error, Officer Birdy Altera Cephon; the fate of this young Saiyan child now rests entirely in your hands. You know what you must do._

_Who are they...?_ the formless mass wondered, finding their conversation to be both very irritating and unnecessary for it was getting in the way of his peaceful drift through the infinite abyss he found himself trapped in. _Can't they see I'm trying to relax here?_

_Do I _really_ have to...?_ the feminine voice demanded.

_To keep this young boy alive, yes, you must,_ the male said.

_No way!_ the female fired back. _I'm not that crazy being stuck with somebody else, even if he _is_ one of the legendary Saiyans who beat Frieza; couldn't you find another Galactic Patrolman to accept this assignment?_

_It's either this or face suspension pending an investigation into charges of manslaughter,_ the other being retorted. _Birdy... given that _you_ are the one responsible for this mess it is your _duty_ to also be that same one to take ownership of this fact... and to pay the appropriate restitution._

_I still don't know..._ the feminine voice, belonging to the girl named Birdy, murmured, clearly uncertain — but then a weary sigh echoed through the non-reality which the undefined consciousness floated through. _There really isn't any other choice, though, is there?_

_No, there isn't,_ the other person said, a bit more urgently. _HURRY! The window will soon close, and you will have overshot your only chance!_

And then through the void, the non-being became aware of another equally abstract and shapeless presence, shooting through the shared non-corporeal universe as if it were drawn to _him_, seeking him out and determined to locate him as instantly in a flash of sensation and sight and color the whole world around him changed, as if through the serene state of massless nonexistence a very _real_ physical form had grasped onto him, sending electric shocks racing through his intangible form, and he caught a glimpse through an imaginary vision of white stripes and pink stripes combined with blue pupils, affecting the child more profoundly and on such a deeply personal and emotional level than anything had ever touched him before...

And with that, his eyelids flew open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's how I view the power levels at this point in time:
> 
> Gohan: 1,500,000  
Super Saiyan Gohan: 75,000,000  
Full Power Super Saiyan Gohan: 750,000,000  
Super Saiyan 2 Gohan: 1,500,000,000
> 
> Birdy Altera Cephon: 32,000
> 
> Geega: 14,000


	2. Battle in the City

And with this, Gohan jerked upright in his bed, blinking his eyelashes rapidly to dispel the cobweb of fatigue which seemed to be clogging his mental faculties, and feeling quite thoroughly disoriented, out of step with the world surrounding him.

"Huh?" he muttered to himself, and then blinked some more as he peered lower to examine his body — then with a startled reaction, he suddenly and without any kind of a prior warning began subjecting his waist, abdomen, hips, and thighs to a swift and evidently methodical inspection, patting himself down in a fierce effort to confirm to his scattered mind that he was all still in one piece. "That was so strange... what happened to me? I... I can't remember..."

He clutched at the crown of his head, as if in a desperate attempt to recall his previous recollection, the last couple minutes before he had bolted awake back in his room, although curiously the photographic memory that obeyed a brain conditioned towards problem-solving somehow was bizarrely absent.

"Ugh, what's wrong with me?" he bemoaned out loud. "I should be able to remember it all, but... but for some odd reason, I _can't_."

And it was at this moment that the shaggy-headed child was able to piece together a new and pertinent fact to his present dilemma and it was how it felt like there was a blanked and thickened fog within his thoughts — a single section to his otherwise highly ordered brain totally voided out for he could not sense anything past the gap, as though it were completely dead tissue; for unfathomable reasons, it appeared _something_ or _somebody_ was responsible for a subtle, nearly imperceptible "shift" in his arrangement of his mental capabilities, a reconfiguration to the way Gohan processed thoughts so _fine_ and razor-thin, he was dubious those with less coordinated minds could have easily picked up the difference, yet... there _was_ a change, there was no doubt to that, but what could it be? And who was behind it?

Before he could ponder this in any further detail however —

"Gohan!" came an older woman's beckoning shout from downstairs. "Gohan! Breakfast's ready! Gohan!" And her voice had now drastically switched over to stern and commanding with barely even a pause in between. "Come and eat before it gets cold!"

Gohan shrugged with an expression of tired amusement crossing his features as a small chuckle slipped out through his mouth. "Mom's still the same as ever — the more things change, the more they stay the same!" And he threw the covers off as he called back obediently, "Okay, Mom, I'll be right down!"

The Saiyan youth hopped down from his bed and quickly scooped up piles of discarded fabric, tugging his pants on over his boxer shorts as he stumbled out the doorway, and then tossed his simple string-button long-sleeve white top over his undershirt, fastening it together tightly even while he hurried through the hall and trampled down the stairs until he came upon the corner to the kitchen, slipping his socks on across his toes, and at last bounded inside with an enlarged grin plastered onto his countenance.

"Hey, Mom, sorry it took me so long!" he said, bowing profusely, and he took his place at the wooden chair seated before the plain table.

"You know what they say, Gohan!" Chi-Chi told him, utterly unfazed with his flippant attitude. "An early bird gets the worm, but you won't have a productive day until you finish the food off your plate, young man!"

Gohan just contented himself to blush with an awkward chuckle.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry..." he babbled on and decided a nice change in subject would be appropriate. "So Mom, did you get a chance to look through my latest essay? My thoughts about the nature of modern playwrights and how they stack up against classical literature?"

"Yes, I did, Gohan," the bossy matron told her son, unperturbed, ladling scrambled eggs on to a dozen plates, arranged alongside an assorted stack of bacon strips, sausage links, and hash browns which had the hybrid's stomach rumbling where he sat in spite of the firm tongue-lashing he was getting. "I also noticed that there was little cartoon cats drawn all over the pages. What did I tell you about doodling, Gohan?"

"Aww! Come on, Mom..." Gohan protested, as the breakfast dishes were laid out before him, and his mother took her place right beside him. "It's not like I drew over the words; you can still see them..."

"Yes, that might be true, but try explaining that to the exams committee for any decently paying college and they'll flunk you out faster than you could blink!" his mother responded, undeterred in her aggressive attempt to seemingly spot whatever flaw she could with him and criticize it, which might appear shocking to an outsider.

"I guess so..." Gohan sighed morosely.

Chi-Chi hitched a brighter expression onto her face.

"Good, so we're settled on that then!" she announced cheerfully.

"Sure..." Gohan mumbled, obviously feeling quite miserable.

However, he found he couldn't _truly_ have prepared himself against what came next for while Chi-Chi closed her eyes that, to that same outsider perspective would appear to be her congratulating herself over a job well done, without warning Gohan felt his left arm jerk upwards, as though being yanked about from a puppet master's strings, to peel back the flap on his lower eyelid and seemingly in complete defiance of his physical autonomy _stuck his tongue out at her_, assuredly _against_ his will, and much to the half-Saiyan boy's absolute horror!

_What in the world?!_ He recoiled privately. _What am I doing?!_

Reacting quickly he tugged back upon his arm and pulled his oral appendage inside his mouth at the same time the Son Matron's eyes flashed open again and Gohan felt his heart give a confused thump of pure and total icy dread, chilling the bloodstream. Did she see him?! What just happened to him?!

"Gohan, dear, is something the matter?" she wondered.

"Uh, what...?" he mouthed blankly, and then spoke up, far more strongly. "Um, I'm sorry, d-did you say something, Mother...?"

He couldn't stop himself from sweating bullets, for if she had caught him, he would be spending the rest of the remainder of the month grounded... and probably through to the end of the year as well.

"It just... seemed like you're a little distracted," she murmured uncertainly before shrugging her shoulders dismissively. "But then it could have just been a trick of the light. Oh well, shouldn't waste time on irrelevant guessing games. Go on — eat your breakfast, Gohan."

Gohan simply blinked at her for a couple seconds, then nodded his head about vigorously, attempting to shake off his brief spell and the dizziness which had caught him by surprise as internally he questioned just what had truly happened not even a couple of minutes previous.

"R-Right!" he said in fervent agreement, and grabbed his fork and spoon, his heart stopped slamming up against his ribcage, and it appeared, on the surface, at least, that events had returned to normal... yet the raven-headed boy couldn't help wondering.

_What was that? Did I just imagine it, or maybe... maybe I'm just losing my mind! Oh I knew I should have stayed in bed today!_

* * *

Once Gohan had finished his breakfast, he retired upstairs to the small, new room off the hall his mother had seen fit to install with a generous stipend from her father, the Ox King's estate — finally after years roughing it by in a huge, tin can outside the house, his family home had gotten a totally functional bathtub assembled in their premises.

Gohan sighed to himself as he shucked off his undershirt and stuck both fingers in his trousers. _I'm sure Daddy would've loved to have a proper bath in the house,_ he mused penitently. _He sure did like taking baths together — but then again Father is happy where he is so who am I to complain about that?_

He dropped his pants, slid his boxer shorts past his ankles, as he pulled his leg over the lip of the tub and dipped his toes in, relishing the steaming warm heat as he sunk his foot in fully and then dragged his remaining leg within as well, and submerged himself smoothly into the snug embrace of a clean bath, seating himself comfortably inside.

For the next dozen moments that passed the demi-Saiyan merely contented himself to sit there, wrapped up with an aura of soothing balmy water, allowing it to lull him into a state of deep, reflective contemplation.

_I wonder how Icarus is doing,_ he mused. _Maybe one of these days I should take him to go see how Yamcha's baseball career is shaping up — the poor guy seemed really down the last time I talked with him._

Gohan sunk deeper into the bath and sighed, until his shoulders themselves were practically immersed in the steaming liquid delight that he found himself surrounded by, calming his latent anxieties and leaving him feeling satisfied in a way _few_ things in his life had done.

_I bet Piccolo is keeping Dende's hands full with his new role as apprenticing to become the next Guardian of the Earth..._ he thought amusedly. _Well, there's no one better suited to the job than him! If he could whip me into shape then surely he could teach Dende all there might be to know on being a successful overseer._

And then, once again, inexplicably and without prior warning he felt his body evidently betray him when an _intense_ burning feeling spread throughout his bloodstream — igniting his nerves and his senses unlike anything had before in his young life, which drew a potent blush from the discombobulated boy. It was wholly unfamiliar, _alien_ sensations that he had had no experience with, and if he had to compare, he would describe it as being akin to a flower which was gradually smoldering within, the incandescence that heralded a fire while his heartbeat had intensified its pace, yammering through his chest in a manner all too reminiscent of the times that he had been in battle.

_What's happening to me?_ he squeaked silently. _First, I apparently hallucinate at breakfast and now I feel like someone's starting a fire inside my own body — and my head feels all screwy... what is it?_

But then, a clarity of understanding blossomed through his head and he groaned out loud for if he could have died from sheer mortification the now thoroughly embarrassed youth would be several feet below.

_Must be what Mom said was gonna happen once I reached this age, the joys of puberty,_ he thought sourly. _Wonderful. At least it's just me here at the moment, that nobody else has to see me going through something like this... I should probably start washing anyway._

In quick fashion, the shaggy-haired boy was cleaned up and feeling much better, although very awkward given the waves of disorienting shivers that ran up and down his flesh with every spot he scrubbed over, leaving him in a state of flustered bewilderment he had no firsthand familiarity in how to cope with, but he had just chalked the whole ordeal up to teenage hormones clouding his judgment, and gave it no further thought even as he got dressed up again, then gingerly meandered towards his room, his face still as ripe as a tomato.

He strolled inside his room and sat himself onto the chair before his wood desk, fishing out a dozen pages of paper which his essays were written upon as he got to work on them, for a significant portion of his days were spent jotting down highly complicated math formulas, and composing articles on his understanding of language and grammar, and also his grasp of some of the most advanced science ever conceived by human minds.

And slowly but surely, he felt himself relaxing as he settled into the well-worn routine, his every motion so finely honed he could allow his thoughts to drift off into the ether, and the only noise that filled his room was the _scritch-scratch_ of his pencil working its way across sheets of paper.

So it was no surprise that his thoughts turned inward.

_Boy, things have sure changed in such a short amount of time!_ he uttered within his head. _Cell is dead, Frieza's gone, and now there's nothing to look forward to but peace and normal stuff looming ahead of us for the rest of our lives. I never thought we'd ever actually reach it, but we did... we actually did it; it feels hard to believe sometimes after all of the horrible battles we've been through, the pain, the suffering... is this a dream?_

His gaze went unfocused even over the scribble of his pencil.

_No, it's real, it _really_ has to be... I mean, we've certainly fought and bled for it! And now, I'm the man of the house — it's up to _me_ to take care of things while Father is gone,_ he realized. _But how on Earth am I going to do it when I don't even have the first idea about how to be a hero? I didn't want this, I _never_ wanted this..._

And still that pencil kept on going, even over his ruminations.

_Maybe I should go see Piccolo,_ he thought, with a smile now drifting over his countenance with the plan of visiting his green, pointy-eared mentor. _Yeah, that would sure cheer me up! And I'm sure he'll have some advice to how to handle my current dilemma. I guess I just gotta finish studying first, and then —_

And it was right then that Gohan became aware how he had stopped focusing on his exam and while typically this would be no problem, for reasons wholly unbeknownst to him, his pencil was still writing down words, and it was at that moment he spotted that, once again, his body was seemingly behaving in defiance of personal wishes for his hand looked to be acting of its own volition in finishing this essay!

"What in the name of..." he grunted with surprise, and attempted to tug back on his arm, and yet, it was as if there were an equally potent force resisting his every effort to cease working on his test, and was refusing to surrender to him. "Hey... stop that! Stop it right now, arm!"

And this appeared to have little effect, for it only _increased_ the rapid rate at which he jotted down words upon the paper, and he had to literally grab at his bicep, and pull hard on his arm, yet this, too, appeared to bear no result!

"Come on, whoever's doing that, cut it out!" he objected angrily. "This isn't funny! Please, stop that right now and... just give — me — back — control — of — my — _ARM!_"

And whatever force had seized command over his body evidently decided that was sufficient and yielded control back to him as Gohan threw his arm up with a velocity and intensity like it had been shot out of a cannon, and he just sat there for a couple of seconds, eyelashes fluttering swiftly while his senses tried to catch up with whatever it was that had just transpired.

"Huh... what the?" he uttered softly, still blinking, as then he put his arm down with a sullen groan. "Oh no... not again! What in the hell is happening to me? This can't just be a case of simply hitting puberty, my body's acting like it no longer belongs to me at times! What's causing this, who's behind it?"

_Am I possessed...?_ he thought contemplatively. _Like when Garlic Jr. poisoned Earth with his Black Water Mist? Wait, does it have anything to do with happened yesterday? But, just... what did happen to me, and why am I having such a... a hard time... remembering it...?_

And then there was a call from downstairs which prompted him to jump in his seat as if he'd been scalded by very, _very_ hot water.

"Gohan!"

As his paranoia cooled and it dawned on him that it was only his mother, he shifted in his chair so that he was facing toward his door and yelled back down at her, his voice politely respectful like it always was whenever he was speaking with Chi-Chi the way she had raised her son to conduct himself.

"Yeah, Mom?" he answered. "Is something the matter?"

"I need you to head to the pharmacy further inland!" she shouted. "I've called them and they already know you're coming. Just pick up my order and hurry it back here! Can you do this for me, Gohan?"

Gohan put down his pencil and shoved himself away from his desk as he bolted upright, now feeling thoroughly concerned for his mother.

_The pharmacy? Is something wrong with Mom?_ he asked himself. Aloud, however, he stated, "Can do, Mother! I'll be back soon!"

"Such a sweet boy..." he heard her sniff from down below.

Ignoring this outburst, he hopped up on to the windowsill, and, not really trusting himself to fly after _something_ had clearly happened to him the previous day, instead yelled at the top of his lungs, "Flying Nimbus!"

From the heavens overhead soared down a yellow cloud, trailing a golden comet in its wake as it swooped inbound, lancing toward the house in a circular loop until it was parked right in front of the sill.

"Hey, how you doing, Nimbus?" he cooed gently, as though he were speaking to one's beloved pet dog. "Haven't seen you in a while."

The Nimbus "said" nothing, but it shuddered with pleasure.

With a smile, Gohan leaped out of the windowsill and onto the Nimbus... where, to his pure horror, the hardened cumulous surface didn't catch him, and he fell right through the cloud to smash facefirst into the wet grass and compacted dirt far underneath! And for a few seconds he could only lay there, feeling dazed and stunned, still reeling from what had just taken place.

_Huh? But... I-I always thought I was a good person!_ he despaired silently. _The Nimbus won't let me on? But I wasn't thinking anything bad; at least I don't think so... what's wrong with me?! Ever since last night, things have been off! My body... what's happening with me?!_

He made his way upward into a sitting posture, spitting out soil and blades of grass which had got stuck in his mouth, rubbing at his head to try and nurse away the large bruise that was forming there even as the Nimbus cloud descended with a seeming dismal aura... it was like the sentient object was feeling guilty for being unable to let the boy ride astride it.

"Hey, Nimbus, do you know what happened?" Gohan asked the family friend curiously. "Is there some reason I couldn't sit on top of you?"

The Nimbus made all kind of weird jerking motions and twisted its puffy body up and down — the gist of which Gohan could apparently understand as he surveyed it, filtering it past his thoughts until he nodded once or twice to show that he could fully comprehend it.

"Hm, yeah, okay, oh, I see! I think I get it now!" he replied. "I should just try again, right? Sure, all right, maybe it'll work now! Could just have been a fluke, yes?"

The Nimbus gave off a shrugging aura, and Gohan stood up. Swallowing nervously, he prepared himself and, shutting his eyes fearfully, leapt back in the direction of the sentient cloud as, to his infinite relief the springy surface caught him immediately without failure, bouncing up and down like a child on a play mattress.

Gohan cracked an eye open and heaved a deep sigh.

"Hey, it worked that time!" he said gratefully. He swung over and around so that he was staring into the yellow surface of the Nimbus cloud directly. "Do you know why it worked this time, and not the last?"

Again the Flying Nimbus gave off that clearly shrugging motion.

"Hmm... well, that was weird..." Gohan said with a careless shrug of his own. "I don't know, I thought there _must_ be something wrong with me, but it probably really _was_ a fluke. Oh well, no sense crying over spilled rice!"

And he pumped out his arm with an eager grin.

"Go, Nimbus!" he declared enthusiastically. "Off to the pharmacy!"

And the Flying Nimbus raced off into the navy and white-streaked beyond with its hybrid companion firmly ensconced upon it, towards the awaiting future that neither of them could've truly foreseen...

* * *

As the Nimbus passed over forests and hillside rivers and houses which looked like little matchboxes from so far above Gohan sighed happily.

"I always feel so calm whenever I stare down on the world from this high up," he said breathlessly. "Like all of the petty little problems and conflicts in the world can't affect me up here. It feels so peaceful..."

He glanced downward at the puffy being and smiled.

"Don't you ever feel that way, Nimbus cloud?" he asked it.

No response, but Gohan wasn't really expecting one, and he sighed again as he merely drank in the beauty of nature around him, turning his head lazily from side to side, absorbing it all with his easy gaze.

_This is ours and it's precious, because we've fought for it,_ he told himself. _The people down there are safe, and they'll never have to experience another terror like the Saiyans or Frieza and Cell _ever_ again._

And suddenly his wandering stare alerted him to something curious, and he reacted with complete shock. Was he really be seeing this?

"Hey, hold on, Nimbus!" he cried. "Wait up for a minute!"

The cloud came to a halt in midair, as Gohan held his hand over his eyes, the better to peer down on the landscape beneath and found to his amazement there were several large dark patches in the city below him, areas where buildings had been leveled, as steel girders twisted into mangled piles of debris, and emergency personnel flooded the streets. All in all, it looked quite depressing, even to somebody who had seen nothing but agony and combat before his tenth birthday.

_What in the world happened over there?_ he asked himself, feeling an upswelling of anger coursing through his veins. _How many people lost their lives from all this, and what could have caused it? Huh... wait a second..._

FLASH! _And he was flying through the night air of his own autonomy, watching explosions race through the metropolis he was observing and with a spiral downward, decided it would be proper to investigate it..._

_That place!_ Gohan gasped silently. _That's the city I went to check out last night! But why? That's where something... something happened to me, obviously _something_ happened to me! But what could it _be_? Can that explain why I'm acting so oddly this morning?_

He glanced down at the fluffy cloud upon which he still sat.

"Hey Nimbus, would you mind detouring to that city over there?" he wondered politely. "It's, well, I think it's kind of important to me."

And with an obedient swoosh of displaced air molecules the Flying Nimbus jerked back into total movement as it swung down in a dive towards the urbanscape stretched out before them which grew larger and larger in his range of vision; and he couldn't help feeling both a little unnerved with also a twinge of ill curiosity.

_Maybe now I'll see if I can jog my memory and piece together what happened in the last few moments after leaving Bulma's house before I blacked out and woke up back in bed — but, something tells me I _really_ don't want to find the answer to this mystery..._

* * *

The dark-toned man sat in their limo alongside his seemingly human companion, with a solid frame, mustache, blonde hair, and sunglasses topping off his partner's look. An acute spectator would immediately recognize the dark-skinned man as Geega, the same froglike man whom Gohan had had a fatal encounter with the previous night.

"And you're sure he's dead?" the blonde man persisted.

"That Galactic Patrol officer fried him up real good," Geega replied. "That's one less problem we have to deal with in our operations here on this slimy mudball. I suspect that she'll be recalled by her superiors after this unfortunate incident. It'll leave a nice mark on her record."

"Even so, the Federation will only send another Galactic Patrolman in her place," the darkly bespectacled said carefully. "And if that boy _was_ one of the Saiyans who took out Frieza, then he wasn't alone and we have others we need to worry about contending with."

"Ah, Gomez, you fool!" Geega snarled. "I'm telling you, he was! If you'd have seen his tail like I did, then you wouldn't doubt me!"

"Hmm... he could have just been a pretender, or perhaps some other tailed species we haven't become aware of," the man evidently named Gomez speculated idly. "After all... it's a big galaxy out there and the remnants of the Cold Empire still war endlessly for control with the Space Federation."

Geega was about to retort when something in his peripheral vision caught his attention and he gasped with horror as he turned his head in the direction in which he had spotted... no way — it couldn't be!

"EH?!" he yelped, and pointed. "And what about that, huh? Look over there, you skeptical idiot, and tell me if that ain't the blasted kid as last night!"

Gomez pivoted his stare to the side, and he witnessed a sturdy youth with messy, spiky hair strolling past the wreckage of buildings while he shook his head back and forth, apparently overcome by what he saw.

"Hmm?" he intoned. "I don't see a tail anywhere on him."

"He could be hiding it underneath his pants," Geega grumbled furiously. "Either way, I'm telling you that that's him, somehow he's still alive and I bet that the meddling Federation officer had something to do with it! Trust me, I wouldn't hardly ever forget a face like his!"

"I suppose it could be possible... he _does_ have a Saiyan's build..." Gomez allowed musingly, and then looked to have made up his mind about something. "Still, we must be sure or Miss Revi won't like it. I've decided — go out there right now, and take care of this business you failed to handle last night."

"ARE YOU NUTS?!" Geega demanded hotly. "If he _is_ one of the Saiyans who beat Frieza he'll rip me to pieces. I don't stand a chance in hell!"

"And have you already forgotten one of the greatest weaknesses of the Saiyans?" Gomez drawled calmly. "His _tail_. If he really is a Saiyan you can grab his tail, and take the time to personally make sure he dies _this_ time around."

Geega wasn't entirely sold on this.

"But what if he's trained away that particular little weakness, huh?" the froglike man said skeptically. "He'll bust me up good, and we'll be back where we started from at the beginning to this whole damned mess!"

"Not likely," Gomez answered confidently. "The rumors were the Saiyans sent to Earth were third-class fighters; only the super elite ever really bothered to train away that weakness in those tails."

"You want me to risk my life _on a rumor?!_" Geega said incredulously.

"It's that or explain your failure to Miss Revi," Gomez countered.

This finally had convinced Geega for he jerked back forcefully as though the mere idea greatly repulsed him, and gazed towards the street upon which the boy he encountered last night had headed off farther down the thoroughfare, still taking in all the images of total carnage and raw destruction.

"Aw, shit!" he growled, and threw open the limo door. "What the hell? You only live once — and nobody ever said it was gonna be _safe_..."

And so it came to pass that Geega stalked off down the road in the vicinity that his prey had moved in, preparing to finish what they had started last night and ensure that this boy stayed down for _good_...

* * *

Gohan roamed throughout the blasted section of the metropolitan area, absorbing it all with a stony expression, while privately he was desperately attempting to force a recollection, to draw on his fractured consciousness to produce an answer as to what exactly happened to him on his way home before.

"Man, what a mess..." he lamented. "It's _awful_. A lot of people died last night." He sighed wearily. "And how many didn't have to...?"

More infuriating than that, however, was the mental block he kept running into whenever he tried to dredge up a fragment of a memory with regards to the former night. He smacked his temple with his hand as though this would bring something to his mind, a flash of battle or perhaps a friendly ally figure such as Piccolo or Yamcha dragging an unconscious Gohan back to his house, but his thoughts remained curiously a void, as ever.

_Ugh! I can't believe I don't remember!_ he berated himself. _Whatever transpired last night has left my mind blank._ His thoughts now went in a wholly original and most decidedly _unwanted_ direction. _It... that is, could somebody be manipulating me in some fashion or —_

And with a narrowing of his eyes, with facial skin tightening over his bones he abandoned this line of pursuit immediately as he whipped a probing look behind him towards his flank, where a swiftly incoming energy projectile was headed straight for him!

Thinking fast, he leaped back from the spot he had previously occupied and landed catfooted on the pavement only twenty meters away as the energy shell connected with the concrete and detonated in a fiery spread of explosive power and destructive winds blowing out.

BOOM!

He shielded his face from the harsh glare, and instantly he reached the conclusion that made the most logical sense given the circumstances.

_Whatever force is behind my strange behavior must have come to finish me off!_ he thought tightly. _But who? Can't... remember..._

And just then his eyes widened and he slipped to the side as a dark-skinned man rushed past, arms outstretched as if he were grabbing at something, for they clutched at empty air the second Gohan jumped aside.

"DAMN IT, SO CLOSE!" he bellowed angrily.

With a scowl, Gohan kicked the man, hard, who went flying into a nearby building, obscuring his view with a storm of busted brick.

"Hey, you!" he belted out. "Get up! Get up so I can see who you are!"

Gradually the debris cloud settled, dust particles thinning out until they'd thoroughly dissipated in the oxygenated atmosphere, leaving the assailant, Geega, lying there amidst the rubble, rubbing at his lower jaw and wincing as if he'd been caught with his hands in a cookie jar.

"You..." Gohan gasped, comprehension slowly dawning on him.

FLASH!

_"No, no, no, no, you've got it all wrong, kid!" the dark-skinned man cried out desperately. "It wasn't me! It was... it was a monster! A monster, yeah!"_

_"A monster?" Gohan repeated dubiously._

_The other man nodded vigorously, as if his life depended on it._

_"Yes, a monster!" he said urgently, looking more terrified than Gohan had ever really seen anybody in his long history of battle. "A really bad monster that's been chasing me for a long time now! He was the one who ruined the city, not me!"_

_And he lunged forward to shake at his shoulders._

_"Please, boy, you gotta help me!" he said; his eyes popped. "Please! Don't let it find me, and whatever you do, don't make it angry! You've seen what happens when he gets angry! Look at all those buildings! Please, you gotta hide me! PLEASE!"_

FLASH!

Now a truly dark frown crossed the tailed boy's countenance.

"Hey, it's you..." he growled furiously. "You were the one who did something strange with me last night, weren't you?! Well, no more! You, whoever you are, I'm going to get some answers from you!"

Returning up into a standing position, even as his legs wobbled dangerously, Geega regarded Gohan with a tightened gaze, eyes darting to and fro on all sides, like a cornered mouse frantically searching for an escape route.

"Hey, you know about as much as I do, kid..." he murmured honestly.

"Like I can actually believe you!" Gohan sniffed. "Look at all those innocent people you killed! Monster, my foot! That was _all_ you!"

Geega found himself smirking, though more in an ironic manner than really finding any sort of humor in his present situation. _Shit, I'm going to die at the hands of this Saiyan whelp, unless I can get at that tail!_

Outwardly, he said, "Guilty as charged."

Gohan spat to the side, now thoroughly disgusted, though he felt no need for apprehension — gauging from the power he felt radiating off this clearly alien fighter, he was no threat to him, perhaps on the same level as Vegeta was when he first came to Earth... no, he looked to in fact be a little _weaker_. And yet, that would explain how he had been easily able to bulldoze across a city, and Gohan's scowl deepened.

"I've met your sorts before... you think that because you have power that it gives you the right to just do whatever pleases you in the name of your sadistic fun," Gohan said accusingly. "Well, you'd better think again if you assume I'm just going to let you have your way on _this_ planet." He pulled his arms inward, then... "AAAARRRGGHHHH!"

And, with this, to Geega's total and abject shock, a burst of powerful energy seemed to explode off him as his body hulked out to far _bulkier_ proportions than he truly felt ought to be _necessary_ in a single being, straining the fabric of his clothes, his eyes changed to a _frightening_ shade of teal burning hot anger and icy rage at him, and his hair suddenly took on a golden color while a similar bright aura of pure glowing, otherworldly energy hummed over him, gold flames licking across his body to the insane degree the outclassed criminal could _sense_ the sheer might blowing off of him in the hurricane he was generating.

_FWHEEP-WHEEP FWHEEP-WHEEP FWHEEP-WHEEP FWHEEP-WHEEP!_

"Let's see how tough you are when you have to fight a _real_ warrior, not helpless civilians!" Gohan avowed, his tone promising blood.

And he crouched down into a plainly practiced battle posture.

_That child, who the hell IS he?!_ Geega demanded privately with an ever greater sense of horrified terror. _This power... what _is_ it? Could this be the same transformation that defeated Frieza? Do I even dare _think_ it... there's _no way_ this little brat could be a Super Saiyan; it's just _not possible_! How could this be happening to me?!_

And, then, his features tightened with hardened resolve, and he straightened up, his back going ramrod straight, as he steeled his nerve and made up his mind, however much he felt like bolting.

_No! I only have _one_ shot with this!_ he thought firmly. _I must get at that stupid little tail of his, and then he won't stand a chance against me! Yet how to get to it... I don't have a choice! If the boy's a real Saiyan, he'll want to pound on me for a while before killing me._ Perspiration poured over the sides of Geega's head, signifying his emotional state. _Fake him out like last night! And then, you're _only_ gonna get _one_ shot at this, you _idiot_! DON'T BLOW IT LIKE YOU JUST DID A MINUTE AGO! If you can trick him, you might move in close enough to —_

A flash, and the twerp had disappeared as he was violently reacquainted with the bastard child not a second later, and for the following progression of time, Geega's universe changed to pain and anguish with strong blows raining down upon him faster than he could literally physically process them all through his mental faculties — it genuinely felt as though a giant meteor storm had decided on that moment to pay him a visit, too fast to even _see_, let alone dodge!

WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

With most of his memories from their former encounter largely restored, and having stood in the shadow of the ruins of death and suffering, Gohan surged with the _enormous_ sense of _vindication_ from being able to unleash his pent-up frustrations upon a living target just like he had done with Cell, though he tempered his response, merely contenting himself to beating Geega into a bloody pulp rather than killing him outright.

After a couple of moments had passed, Geega fell upon the cracked pavement, greatly injured, bloodied raw like meat with black and blue bruises swelling all across his body, and he appeared to be feeling little more than one big throbbing sensation that painfully reminded him he could still count himself among the living, _somehow_, with millions of stinging welts forming over his flattened mass, and for a couple of seconds all that resonated through his hearing was an insistent, nagging whine or ringing noise — like chimes.

_I... how is it possible I can still be alive?_ he groaned silently. _This pain... I'd never thought _anyone_ could punch so hard. Not even that damned Galactic Patrol officer... this boy... he, he truly _is_ a Saiyan, all right... totally savage to his core... what the hell sort of a hope do I have against him...?_

Gohan crossed his arms as he glared down at the unmoving pile of tangled limbs and assorted bloodstains across his battered flesh.

"That enough?" he boomed commandingly. "Are you going to leave this planet and never come back or do I have to give you another beating?"

_He's actually... offering me the chance to flee?_ Geega questioned privately with a mounting sense of what he recognized as triumphant glee. _Well, well, well... looks like this Saiyan boy has one huge, glaring weakness past his tail and I found out what it is! He may have all the _power_ of a real Saiyan, but _none_ of their brutality. He's too damned soft-hearted to call himself a Saiyan! Must be a hybrid, only part Saiyan. Yes, that's it! That's the way!_

If he could have, he would have chuckled from sheer relief right then and there, but a delicate performance had to be put on if he was going to have any chance of surviving this with his hide intact, and thus he readied himself to put on an even _finer_ acting presentation than he had the previous day, when he flung the hapless child before the oncoming path of the interfering Galactic Patrol officer.

"Ach..." Geega whimpered, keeping to his role as a wounded, beaten man coming to grips with his situation. "Y-You... you... got me... what the hell... are you, b-boy...? I had... had n-no chance... at all. To st-stay... stay on this wretched planet would be suicide... y... yes... please d-don't kill me... I'll leave, and... and... and..."

And here, to his combination of unfortunate dismay and crowing delight, however painful it may be, a very convincing spurt of blood sprayed from his mouth in a hacking cough just further sold his act as a pragmatic offender seeing reason and wishing to race and hide as soon as he was bodily able to.

"... n-never... come back..." he finished in a wheezing gurgle.

Gohan, never one for ruthless practicality, immediately bought into Geega's pain-filled vow and nodded down at him, unfolding his arms while he dropped the Super Saiyan transformation with a displaced sigh of escaping power slipping through his lips.

"See to it that you never do," Gohan said coldly. "I don't want to repeat this lesson again, because next time I'll just be forced to kill you. And trust me, this isn't my full power — let alone _half_ of it."

Geega literally shivered upon being bestowed this revelation, and he didn't even need to fake the pure fear he felt chilling his blood and crawling up his spine.

_HALF?! He's not even using HALF his full power?!_ he bleated silently. _Oh shit, he really _must_ be the Saiyan who _beat Frieza_... there's simply _no other explanation_! No — no choice now. Stay calm... stay calm... you got him to drop the transformation — just wait for it... your perfect opportunity to strike will soon present itself..._

"I... I promise..." the dark-toned man squeaked.

With another nod, the boy spun on his heel and made to move off...

And Geega let a huge smirk cross his face. _NOW'S MY CHANCE!_

And reacting with outwardly the lightning speed of a swirling blur, Geega jumped upward while the Saiyan youth's back was turned to him as he reached his hand down into the back of the child's trousers, and... yes, _there it was!_ The _tail!_ And he squeezed down hard upon Gohan's furry appendage, _savoring_ the victorious feeling of just _crushing_ it within his grasp.

"Hey, what are you —" the boy demanded heatedly, then trailed off weakly as he felt all the strength ebb from his body and he collapsed to the pavement in a twisted knot of feeble limbs and writhing skin, with his cheek ground into the dirty, uneven asphalt. "M-My tail... what... wh... what did y-you... do...?"

And Geega returned to his feet as he let loose a bellowing roar of prideful joy, laughing madly where he stood towering over the now helpless Saiyan hybrid, wringing the furry brown tail extra tense.

"You might be stronger than me, but you're dumber too!" he gloated. "_Just like a Saiyan!_ You are _all_ muscle and _no_ brain! Lucky for me."

_The... cheating bastard...!_ Gohan raged powerlessly inside his own head. _He tricked me! He... he knew I was a Saiyan all _along_ and now he's got me! He's really... really _got_ me! Oh damn it! What the hell am I supposed do...? I won't fall here... all these people are _counting_ on me to stop him!_

Gohan strained to lift his arms off the concrete, but they felt like squiggling jelly as he couldn't sustain his effort when Geega yanked even _more_ forcefully upon his most vulnerable organ, and he flopped bonelessly onto the street floor, shivering like a leaf and cursing his aching limbs for betraying him, but above all, raging even more fiercely at _himself_ for getting so careless!

_I should have seen this coming!_ Gohan screamed inside.

"D-Damn... you..." Gohan gasped. "Let... me... go..."

Geega leered down at him from his superior spot perched above.

"Not very likely, kid," he intoned in a low, slyly dangerous cadence, retaliating by supplying the soft, fuzzy limb with an extra hard tug by his rough and calloused hands, prompting Gohan to wince violently back from the physical contact. "Now, I want two things from you before I even _consider_ letting you go. First I want you to tell me _exactly_ how you came back from the dead, if that meddlesome Galactic Patrol officer had _anything_ to do with it. And second... I demand you tell me where that insolent little wench is hiding."

"Wh-Wha...?" Gohan groaned blearily.

Then to his complete mystification words shot through his head as plainly and cleanly as if he himself had thought them, but... like with his hand behaving of its own volition earlier in the day, he had _not_ been the one to express them!

_Hey! You battled well, kid!_ And to add to his ongoing befuddlement, this other presence clearly possessed a _girl's_ voice! What the _hell_ was _going on_?! _But I think it's _my_ turn now to show this creep a thing or two!_

_What?!_ Gohan whispered privately. _Who said that?!_

And, then, to his complete and total bewilderment, he found his own body _morphing_, stretching, _oozing_ into totally new, _alien_ features that were most assuredly NOT his own, though there wasn't any pain; on the contrary, it felt quite _pleasant_, almost, this feeling of having his skin _melt_ away into and sink _deeply_ into the swiftly growing physical mass sprouting from his own humanoid form, as the shapeless outline took on fresh dimensions, with his rock solid-arms now streamlining, thinning, springing taller and taller, with his crop-top of ebony hair spilling out across his backside, split in half by a pink strip and an ivory stripe, his flesh _softening_ — until, at last, to his unrivaled _amazement_, he found that a _girl_ had formed _from his body!_

And what a girl she was, too! With a lean, athletic figure that belied the tangible _might_ he could sense _flowing_ through her muscles joined as he was to her by a nearly _irresistible_ physical and mental/emotional link, _feeling_ her limbs _hum_ with energy and a _sheer_ determination as intense as if he were personally experiencing it firsthand, and... and here, the poor boy would've blushed if he were capable of it — for he was acutely drawn to focus on the more... _feminine_ aspects to the new body which had replaced his own, the swollen chest, the curved hips, the pulse of her heart that had superseded his, the delicate, moist region near her most secret, stalwartly forbidden nether area...

_No, that is wrong!_ he fumed internally, mostly out of embarrassed puzzlement. _I can't be _this_ close to a _girl_ — it's... it's _not_ proper!_

But the girl who took charge over his physical autonomy looked heedless to the blazing furnace of boiling emotions which coursed through her, connected such as the two were, for her attention was completely fixated on the criminal above her, who reacted with shock to spot how the tail he had been gripping had plainly vanished from sight, leaving him curling all his fingers around a phantom object.

"No, it can't be!" Geega yelped crossly. "It's _you?!_ But HOW?!"

"Here I am, Geega!" Birdy declared confidently as she flipped herself up off the pavement and landed easily two meters away. "You wanted me so badly? Then come on, big boy, let's see how you handle me!"

_That's not my voice..._ Gohan murmured with mute shock through Birdy's head. _And that is not my body moving about! And yet, I can _feel_ it as deeply as if _I_ were the one doing it! What, the... what is going _on_ here?!_

Birdy didn't pay her "passenger" any notice, engrossed as she was in staring down Geega, who'd finally got his wits to him, and growled.

"Blast you, Birdy!" he seethed, and rushed his new enemy.

Birdy leapt up in the sky while privately Gohan _marveled_ at the girl's — _That man, Geega... called her Birdy?_ — graceful skill, performing a highly complicated series of acrobatic maneuvers yet what this Birdy person who had hijacked his body lacked compared to him in pure power, she more than made up for with stamina and agility.

And while Gohan watched, _astonished_ by the events unfolding before this odd girl's eyes, the opposing foe puffed out his neck into his lower jaw, his face bulging up and out in a distinctly froglike appearance — with his head now wholly enlarged, he inhaled deeply, as though sucking in as much precious air that he could steal and in the next breath, blew out the same energy projectile which had nearly hit Gohan beforehand on the street!

_LOOK OUT!_ Gohan screamed through her mind.

But he needn't have feared, for Birdy easily dodged the blast as if slipping through it with the gentle caress of a breeze passing about through the wind and the energy bomb slammed into a nearby video game outlet that crumpled inward under the force of the explosion.

_So _that's_ what was happening last night!_ Gohan gasped silently. _Geega was the one responsible for all that devastation... and Birdy, _she_ was the one chasing him? But to what end?_

Ignoring the spectator inside her consciousness, Birdy propelled herself high into the sky even as Geega fired off another projectile from his mouth, keen on catching her, but the multicolor-haired girl was simply too speedy for him to tag; flipping about like a woman possessed, she evaded each and every energy shell that Geega dispatched her way!

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

_Hey! Please watch what you are doing!_ Gohan reprimanded her, not really knowing if she could actually hear him but giving it a try all the same. _We can't let innocent bystanders get caught by the crossfire!_

Astoundingly, this seemed to have had some kind of effect on the nimble girl; for now, Birdy dive-bombed Geega, spinning and twisting through a sky streaked with the luminosity of a veritable _hail_ of energy bombs, ducking through them all as the hostile target loomed in their shared vision, and like that Birdy stretched out with a powerful kick that connected solidly with Geega's midsection, sending him flying back and crashing over the skeletal struts of several demolished buildings, as Birdy let off a little pirouette in midair and landed on a steel girder, surveying the urban landscape below her dominant gaze and the place in which Geega had touched down in a heap, soundly beaten.

"Geega!" Birdy called down upon the thwarted villain, adopting an "official" authoritative dash to her already dynamic voice, prompting goosebumps to erupt all her across her skin and much to the appalled dismay of the boy responsible that was trapped within, though aside from a brief shudder passing through her body, Birdy seemed to hardly provide this any notice. "Now it's _your_ turn to give me some answers before I take you into the custody of the Galactic Patrol and the Space Federation. Tell me, where can I find Chrystella Revi and what are her plans for this world?"

_Galactic Patrol... Space Federation?_ Gohan echoed inside Birdy's thoughts. _Would you mind telling me just what the hell is going on here? Oh and please, _give me back control over my own body?!

Still the twin-haired girl refused to listen to the internal dialogue, and now he was starting to feel quite irritated with her dismissal of him.

"Do you really think I'd tell you?" the defeated Geega grunted.

"You'll feel less guilty if you do," Birdy retorted strongly. "Come on, we'll offer you leniency if you confess to your crimes. It's good for the conscience, and you'll rest easier in prison. So... what do you say?"

_You're wasting your time!_ Gohan yelled at her. _People like him won't listen to what you say, they think they can boss everyone around!_

After a few moments had passed, Birdy sighed to herself.

"You're right," she intoned delicately, filling Gohan's body with a renewed sense of hope that Birdy found to be entirely distracting — she truly _had_ heard him! _Maybe _now_ I can get some answers!_ Though to his vast disappointment, Birdy went on with business as usual. "I guess there's no point."

"How dare you..." the inhuman Geega rumbled, sounding irate.

"Looks like I'll just have to send you on your way!" Birdy announced assertively, and pulled from behind her hair above her ear... some kind of an alien device?

_What is that?!_ Gohan asked her. _What are you doing?! TELL ME!_

She aimed the alien gadget at Geega and pressed down on a type of dial displayed upon its modular surface and a flash of wire-frame lines briefly sparkled around the fallen enemy, as a moment later, he was utterly enveloped by a black sphere creeping across him, contained within, and with a further click of another button on the strange tool the darkened globe vanished in a haze of particles beyond the cool morning atmosphere.

Birdy grinned to herself. "Off he goes! Another job well done!"

_Okay, the bad guy's gone — NOW WILL YOU PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT?_ Gohan begged, nearly about to lose his wits.

Birdy scoffed to herself, although linked as he was to her now, he could _feel_ that a good deal of it was for show as a passionate layer beneath it was tinged by a gentle current of teasing amusement.

"You know, you sure do complain a lot..." she observed lightly.

A blink of his eyes passed, and Gohan was back in his own body as though he had never genuinely departed from it in the first place.

For a couple seconds the stunned boy just stood upright in the warm heatshine of the mid-morning sun, eyelashes fluttering swiftly while he worked overtime to process what had just transpired; to try to make sense of it all! But as hard as he might attempt it, he couldn't truly fathom the inexplicably foreign experience he'd just undergone.

"What in the world?" he burst out suddenly, erupting into another frantic case of patting himself over, giving his legs, arms, and torso a thorough examination, while in the depths buried beneath his chest his heart slammed violently against his ribcage, thundering so fiercely he sincerely fretted he could be in danger from possibly having it break free and flop out onto the ground like a fish gasping for air. "Huh? How?! What _was_ that?!"

After checking himself down, Gohan shook his head, still feeling immensely perplexed by the collection of strange events that had ensued in the progression of the previous past several minutes.

_I look to be all in one piece,_ he mused to himself. _I don't get it, though! How could a _girl_ be _inside_ me...? Or, wait..._ A new route of speculation seized upon him, one that seemed more logical than the totally bizarre conclusion that he could have another sentient being trapped inside him. _My tail... I've never had it grabbed before like Daddy... was everything I saw just an elaborate hallucination to rationalize the way I took out that guy? No, can't be... if that's the case then where did his _body_ go once it had ended? No... that's not what happened at all. I know now. I think there's just _one_ reason._

The sirens of approaching police cars caught his focus, and with a burst of motion he brought himself back under control as in a panic Gohan ran off down the shattered boulevard, his mind set, absolutely resigned to the sadly harsh but inevitable truth of the only possible explanation.

_I _must_ be going crazy..._


	3. Two Hearts Beat Within

"Here ya go, Mom!"

And, following the pronunciation of this statement, clasped fingers unfurled to reveal what lie within, which resulted in the disclosure of the white crumpled pharmacy bag cupped inside the palms of Son Gohan, freshly returned to his home from his sojourn inland to purchase his mother her necessary medical requirements.

The Son Matron pressed her flattened palms up vertically onto her cheek and squeezed her eyelids shut out of grateful exuberance.

"Oh, you're such a good boy, Gohan!" Chi-Chi exhaled airily. "My, you're going to make a fine scholar one day... always eager to help others — so respectful, so considerate. A true gentleman is rare and I'm so proud by how I've raised you to become a true gentleman!"

Gohan rubbed down the back to his neck self-consciously.

"Whatever you say, Mom..." he groused, shuffling his feet where he stood. "Can I please go lie down now? I... I don't feel very well..."

Chi-Chi fell out of her delighted posture with all the abrupt velocity present in a room with a light switch that had been flipped as her joy plainly gave way to an expression converted to motherly anxieties.

"What's wrong, honey?" the long-plaited woman said fretfully, peering close to examine his face. "You _do_ look a bit pale... sure, go ahead."

"Thanks..." Gohan muttered wearily, and departed her presence.

He turned the corner, and trudged on up the steps, where he headed down the short hallway, swung into his room and crossed the distance to flop down bonelessly on his comfortable, well-cushioned mattress, savoring the soft, padded material beneath his backside while his thoughts sped up to practically a thousand miles an hour; but while they were racing, they seemed to be going nowhere at the same time — like a car on cinder blocks accelerating up and remaining fixed in place, shredding the gears in precisely an identical manner to how Gohan felt his body still reacting on chemical overload even though that battle had been over for a significant duration of time.

_What _was_ that?_ he asked himself for the dozenth time since his encounter with that mysterious warrior in the wrecked city. _Surely I can't have a _girl_ living inside me, that's just _strange_... and very, _very_ creepy; besides, where'd she get a chance to join with me and how would she even _do_ that? This whole thing just makes _no_ sense..._

He sighed tiredly, shifting so that he was turned away from his door and toward the window as he gazed out upon the verdant hillside and forested region which was the 439 Mountain Area, his home; gently familiar to him after everything he had just been through, like a soothing balm for his agitated state of affairs.

_Of _course_ I'm losing my mind..._ he groaned silently. _It just _had_ to happen after all of the intense battles that we've been through._

He lowered both his eyelids, attempting to relax his slamming heartbeat and nervous, conflicted thoughts. Yeah, listening to the sounds of nature outside his window, with joyous birds chirping, the trickle of rushing water and the rustling of turf as the blades of grass blew about to the currents of the gusting wind he found he could let himself drift away and pretend all his troubles were as distant and isolated from him as the far end of his life stretched before him.

_It's all just a hallucination..._ he told himself, yawning out his angst, so that he was filled with nothing but tranquil lethargy, summoning him to restful slumber. _I'll just go back to sleep, and wake up, and well, who knows? But at least it won't affect me anymore._

_HEY!_ that same feminine voice from before echoed across his mind, prompting his eyes to shoot madly open as thunder pounded against his ribcage and he jerked up in the bed. _Get with the program, kid!_

"It's you!" the mop-headed boy cried. "That voice, the girl from the city! But, _where_ are you? I... I don't see you around anywhere..."

_You know, for such a smart kid you're surprisingly slow,_ the girl called back haughtily. _Where do you think I am? Your first speculation was on the nose. I'm _inside_ you, silly!_

"Inside me?" Gohan squeaked timidly.

The Saiyan hybrid now guided his thoughts to within, probing deeper, attempting to get a sense for the layout of his brain while he examined the blanked-out section he had detected earlier, and, sure enough, to his infinite astonishment, he discovered that, through the gap in his consciousness he could discern a patina of emotions and thoughts filtering back, as if they belonged to someone else! He felt an aura of teasing confidence and an abstract hint of frustrated apprehension but very little past this, and... a vaguely undefined sense of softness and delicate warmth, something he wasn't _personally_ acquainted with, though he could still speculate as to its true nature, and did — was it the girl's estrogen, hormone production, and all the various manner of unique chemical composition which blended together to make up the female body?

"Hey, what are you doing _inside_ of me?!" Gohan demanded, building himself up to anger; anger was good — he really did _not_ want to think about the fact that viewing _everything_ taking place behind his pupils and his limbs was a _girl_... no, no, no, it was _quite_ improper! Anger could help him get a handle on this, though he had the mounting suspicion that the tangle of freshly horrified trembles quivering over his flesh and the knot of confused, borderline hysterical feelings were written upon his spirit as plain as day. "How did this happen, please tell me!"

_You mean you don't remember the accident last night?_ she asked.

"The accident..." he intoned breathlessly, his gaze slackening.

FLASH! _Before he could even process the act he was flung over the pavement as coruscating power exploded all across his skin, lighting him up so that every neuron felt on fire, and his consciousness rapidly dimmed out of his body until finally, all his perceptions went dead from the unearthly screams that rent the night sky over the ravaged city..._

"That was _you?!_" Gohan said, irate. "_You_ did that to me?!"

_Yes..._ the mysterious girl confirmed, as subsequently he felt a new sensation flitter through the joined connection between the two — a commingling of feeling he had experienced most potently back at the Cell Games while he saw his daddy vanish with Cell and his ki faded into nothingness; a powerful, nearly overwhelming flow of regret, mixed with personal shame, and Gohan realized this girl felt _guilty_! _That was me and I'm sorry it happened this way, kid. I was trying to get Geega, not you; he tricked me, you got caught in the crossfire._

"I see..." Gohan said slowly, only he didn't, not really. Before he could launch back into a righteous fury, however, the girl interrupted him.

_The name's Birdy!_ the girl said by way of introduction. _Officer Birdy Altera Cephon of the Galactic Patrol, and first let me just say what an _honor_ it is, kid! If I _have_ to be trapped with someone then at least I'm pleased that it's one of the legendary Saiyans who overthrew Frieza!_

"Um, wait, how do you know about me and Frieza?" he inquired, momentarily flummoxed, as he abandoned his mortified rage.

_Oh come on!_ she contested as a shadow of a snort reverberated throughout his private headspace. _You have a tail, and you live on Earth? It's not that hard to guess, honestly._ She pressed on eagerly, sounding much like a stereotypical fangirl star-struck by the presence of any lead guitarist to a boy-band which she had a crush on while a rush of excitement passed between their link, leaving the hapless youth feeling more than a bit bewildered as to how to deal with it as well as a little humbled, all at the same time; she felt _all_ that for _him_? _You _are_, aren't you? You're one of the Saiyans who thwarted Frieza._

"Er, I, uh..." Gohan confessed, feeling quite thoroughly as if he'd just suddenly got ushered on stage to the judgment and praise of a throng of cheering admirers so that ultimately he was very flustered with his reply back. "Well, sure, I helped out, but it was actually Daddy who defeated Frieza on Planet Namek, and then another friend of ours destroyed him when he came to Earth trying to take revenge."

Birdy, meanwhile, nestled safely within the cellular structures and muscle mass and interior physical composition to the demi-Saiyan's body felt a flash of memory race through his mind that connected as the two were, she caught a glimpse, and she nearly reeled from the sensory overload.

FLASH! _A spike-headed man hunched down before a sleek, lizard-like alien, nearly naked in appearance, as he growled and thunder crackled all about him as though heralding the rise of a new legend — for in a burst of raw explosive power, his wild mop of unruly, night-colored locks shot up toward a pointy halo, and a golden aura glowed and hummed all over his body, while the child watching it recoiled in amazement and horror..._

The flicker of recollection vanished, and Birdy couldn't help but to undergo a sense of disorientation. While she tried to dispel the new impression she also absorbed it without letting it overpower her, for she was still not wholly accustomed to sharing something as vastly personal and deeply intimate as her limbs and her thoughts and memories with another equally inquisitive and conscious soul.

She caught the boy, Gohan, peering back at her across the surreal mentalscape that was their joined head following the vivid flashback both had just experienced, gauging her reactions, her feelings, as his own heart and the passions that beat within were laid out bare as if he were nude, a searching, solemnly curious probe that was an attempt to understand his new passenger; for this brief instance in time the twin minds that operated within one, singularly bonded body, separated as they were by conditioning and a lifetime of personal beliefs forged through events from childhood as well as the physical autonomy indigenous to most other sapient lifeforms were connected as tightly snug as if they were merely _one_ being — with the illusion, the outer layers stripped away. An intense episode, certainly.

But then, the "wall" which had been present beforehand was back up, erected as firmly as concrete between them, and Gohan felt more than a little embarrassed at trying to stare at this girl's "soul," so to speak.

_I'm sorry!_ Gohan bleated at her through his head. _I d-didn't really... I was just curious, that's all! I didn't mean to... but wait, what even _was_ that? It's... it's like I could see into your heart and your thoughts and memories, without the barrier we have right now, and — wow, I..._

_Hey! Calm down, kid!_ Birdy said seriously. _So you slipped. Big deal. Boy, do you have a tendency to babble, or what? Relax! Take things easy, you won't live to see thirty if you overreact to everything like that._

"I am... I-I'm... confused..." he said out loud now, trying to make sense of all this insanity which had engulfed him in the past several seconds. "How'd this happen...? I mean, if _you're_ the one responsible for what happened last night, why is it necessary for you to... to be _here_ with me, at all? What _really_ happened?"

A "sigh" filled his mental ears.

_There's no way you're going to _really_ understand what's happened to you unless it's explained,_ she huffed. _And I'm not qualified for that, so... off we go!_

And to his total dismay, Gohan felt his body _yanked_ forward, like he were some variety of a marionette whose corporeal movements were being manipulated by someone else, tugged and pulled in the direction of his open window, his limbs flailing about every which way — which proved itself to be quite a disconcerting affair, to say the least.

"Hey, what are you doing?!" Gohan objected hotly.

_What does it look like I'm doing?_ Birdy declared with an "air" to her voice which made it plain she thought that was a dense question. _I'm taking you to somebody who will explain the whole situation and could do a better job at it than me._ Another silent "sigh." _Why do I have to put up with this slowpoke...?_

"That's... not... fair!" the tailed boy complained even while the girl within who had seized his body dragged him up over the windowsill and had him perched upon the lip of the wooden panel as if about to push him off of it! "You have control over my body — give it back!"

_Not likely!_ Birdy retorted, and to follow this up, an intangible scoff echoed in his thoughts, and it couldn't be more loud and clear than if he were standing beside her. _Get a move on, we'll never make it there in time if you keep dawdling about like an Alvanian slug here! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry it up!_

For while she been occupied by berating him, "Birdy" had pulled back on his haunches and, to his boundless gloom, jumped off the sill as the emerald turf approached rapidly in his line of vision! They were going to hit!

WHAM-WHAM!

Twin thuds reverberated solidly through his body as his shoes had smashed into the grass below, absorbing the impact that shuddered through him like a rippling wave, as, without any further warning, his body was away and running over the countryside at a steady sprint, jogging about like a madman possessed to reach his destination.

"What... are... you... doing?!" the boy repeated, _extremely_ unused to the _thoroughly_ unpleasant perception of having his body seemingly _act on its own_. "Stop this, please cut it out! Okay, really, that's enough!"

_It will be enough once we've got there!_ Birdy chirped, sounding all "innocent" to his ears, though Gohan couldn't help but frown, for he could _feel_ coy superiority leaking through the blanked mental "fence" between the two, and he had the sneaking suspicion Birdy was merely _letting_ him see what he had glimpsed in the gulf between the shared headscape.

"But... why... aren't... we... flying?" he implored the formless girl.

_It's _your_ body, not mine,_ she commented with a careless "shrug." _To do that, I'd need to know how to tap into your power, which is entirely different from me just _ordering_ your limbs to move places and much _harder_ than it looks._

"Why can't _you_ just fly?!" Gohan raged impotently.

_I would if I knew how,_ she summed up succinctly. _And I don't._

_Then let _me_ have control!_ Gohan pleaded silently. _You want to take me someplace, fine! But we'll save time and arrive a lot quicker if you let _me_ be the one to do it!_

He couldn't be altogether certain, given as Birdy and the bulk of her feelings and thought processes were blanketed by the invisible buffer, but he could swear he had caught a flash of amusement, seemingly that he had managed to outwit her and provide a logical reason to return control to him, for indeed, privately Birdy felt impressed.

_This kid's definitely got a lot of spunk!_ she mused to herself, away from any attempt by Gohan's prying eyes to gaze into her spirit. Out loud, however, she sent a "nod" through the link and cried, _You've got a point, kid! All right, if that's how it's going to be, then have it your way!_

And he almost lurched off his feet as control over his body functions was violently returned to him but as he pitched forward Gohan tugged back on himself so he was pulled into an upright posture where he'd wound up standing, feeling dizzy and somewhat stunned.

"Anyone ever tell you you're demanding?" He sighed. "For a girl."

And without warning, his left fingers curled themselves into a balled fist as his arm soared upward and slammed into his cranium in an astoundingly painful impact.

"Hey, that hurt!" the muscular boy grumbled.

_You're wasting time!_ Birdy reprimanded. _Now get going!_

Yet as he expelled another sigh and blasted off to a flared burst of white aura enveloping his body up and into the butter-warm sun over a curving slice of cerulean, he couldn't help but feel encouraged by the way he'd been able to persuade the odd girl inhabiting a space inside his own body to relinquish control back to him, for maybe...

It meant there might be some hope after all.

* * *

_There!_ she called through his thoughts after twenty minutes of flying had brought them to a point not terribly far from West City. _Down there, turn towards that junkyard, right below!_

"We're heading to the junkyard?" Gohan said dubiously.

_Of course not, kid!_ she fired back through his mind.

"But... then, what...?" he uttered perplexedly.

_Just do it!_ Birdy urged him persistently.

With a deep grunt which signaled his rising irritation, Gohan swung into an arcing dive as he straightened towards a downward path that took him on a course right at the site, but he couldn't _wholly_ suppress _all_ of his impatience that he'd felt in having to work alongside such a bossy female occupying physical space in him — for he harbored a sickening feeling Birdy actually _enjoyed_ telling him what to do!

The dump zoomed closer and closer in his eyesight until, finally, he angled in for a landing as his feet touched down on firm ground again and he stood there for a couple seconds amidst the skeletal frames which belonged to several nearby automobiles, both the hover conversion model and retrograde land-roamers, all stripped clean, scavenged for pieces as he wondered if he could look any more like possibly the biggest moron who had ever dwelled on Planet Earth.

"Okay, we're here," Gohan said hastily before she could seize control over him again. "Now where am I supposed to go? Tell me, Birdy!"

_Cool your jets, kid!_ Birdy sniffed. _Anyway, see that large pile of cars over there, at sixty degrees to your left?_ At her prompting he'd turned his head over and, like Birdy had said, spotted the towering heap of torn seats buried within mangled chasses reaching tall into the air, almost as if clawing towards the heavens. _Head that way._

Gohan shook his head, knowing that at this stage in their new relationship that attempting to get her to provide an explanation or offer his insight wouldn't accomplish much and thus he set off in the direction of the pile of debris, muttering to himself as through it all, there could be absolutely _no doubt_ to the smug aura Birdy now projected through their mutual connection.

_There!_ she barked out suddenly. _See that groundcrawler?_

"A... a, a what... did you say...?" Gohan said, baffled.

Another "sigh" now reverberated inside his caged skull. _Sorry, kid, I forgot. It's the term we use for any grounded land transport, but you should be staring right at it... there — stop! Do you see that vehicle before you?_

For his sight had fallen onto a particularly dented car situated halfway atop the pile which looked to be in an especially sorry state of disrepair — aside from being completely intact, the shredded husk appeared to be perhaps only a few bumps away from collapsing in upon itself.

"Yes, I see it, but what do you expect me to do?" Gohan said.

_I want you to open the door and get inside,_ Birdy ordered.

"You're kidding me, right?" Gohan rebuffed. "That thing looks like it won't be able to support _anyone_ for very long. That's a disaster!"

_Do what I tell you,_ Birdy advised him gently but forcefully.

Feeling still quite like the puppet maneuvered about on strings, even with control over his motor functions firmly under his influence, Gohan clambered onto the scrap cloistered below it, grabbing on handholds along the way until he found, to his surprise, that the stack of cars evidently were held together much sturdier than they appeared.

"This thing's a lot stronger than it looks," he shared with Birdy, dumbfounded, pulling open the driver's side door, which creaked a little to the touch, and he crawled inside that shell of a vehicle.

And, to his growing sense of childish awe, he made upon a circular hatch arranged in the exterior portion to the passenger side seat of the automobile, inverted diagonal, though once he poked his nose sufficiently beyond the innermost metal casing of the broken and dilapidated land-car there emitted a loud series of beeps as then a click sounded through the small chamber when the hatch twisted in place, and slid apart up and down with a _whoosh_ of depressurized air to reveal a second, larger portal stretched inside, with a green light flashing on a tiny pad fastened to the vaulted metal slab's center.

"Whoa, what's this?" he whispered curiously, inching closer —

Only for the new access hole to unseal like the one outside it, and Gohan was bestowed a fleeting peek of what seemed like a hollowed out _room_ past the entryway before a strong pull of suction seized upon his limbs and hauled him within, and a startled yelp escaped his lips!

"Who-o-o-o-o-a-a-a-a-a!" he complained, _really_ not liking this!

He tumbled head over feet while the world spun around him, twisting and turning quickly as if he had been put through a washer on rinse cycle —

As he was then plopped forth unceremoniously and deposited on the room's floor, but through the disorientation Gohan heard the hatchway _whoosh_ close behind him while he rung himself mentally, recovering his wits about him so that he could identify the dimensions to the compartment he had been dragged inside.

"Wow, what is this place?" he said, but Birdy remained silent.

The area itself looked to be pretty sparse, populated by nobody else, with a huge expanse of empty space, although positioned ahead of his vision was a curved length of panel beneath a large, blank computer monitor around which were set a pair of bizarrely disproportioned seats —

And the tailed kid whipped his head to the rear, for his attention was wrenched toward the low cadence of fizzing static that heralded a light which had popped up above some fashion of _machine_ on the exterior wall, a spherical pad affixed to the base within a dipped bauble that looked to have had the majority of the core, the upper and outer top and side layers removed.

"What's happening?!" he yelped, not prepared for... whatever _this_ was!

Before his eyes, however, imaging scanners worked to resolve the static and the light into a shape, that took on colors, an outline, and he gasped from the realization that had suddenly dawned on him!

"It's a hologram!" he burst out, now absolutely convinced.

And true enough the blur of splotchy dyes and flickering wire-frame lines soon assembled itself into a solid if faintly translucent portrait of an alien lifeform — with insectoid features, a hardened exoskeleton, overly large, off-green bug's eyes, distinctly lacking in pupils, a bulbous mouth-plate, lower thorax, what appeared to be an organ which resembled the gaster segment to an ant, and elongated arms and legs that ended with sharp, wickedly carved claws and talons.

"An alien!" Gohan cried from instinct, though not entirely afraid.

And then, the insectoid creature spoke, its manner of speech distorted, like it was being strained through a microphone submerged in water.

"Yes, Son Gohan — an alien," the insect-being voiced calmly. "I am Inspector Mavius of the Space Federation seeking to put a stop to the tyranny of the Cold Empire and the last of the Arlians, although if what we suspect about your background and your lineage is true, then you won't be all that surprised by my physical appearance."

Gohan nodded his head about slowly, still a bit behind step.

"This place..." he murmured quietly. "It's a spaceship, isn't it? And you're not here, are you? You're talking to me with a hologram."

"Precisely," the alien, Mavius, pronounced swiftly, evidently pleased how Gohan had been able to deduce all that for himself. "And, unless we are gravely mistaken in our theory, you are a Saiyan, or at least have Saiyan blood in your veins — and more to the point, you are possibly one of the same Saiyans who conquered Frieza. Is that correct, Son Gohan?"

Gohan sighed and felt every weight the fatigue hang upon his bones.

"Like I told that girl, Birdy, I helped out against Frieza, but I didn't actually _kill_ Frieza," he clarified. "Though why does it matter so much to you anyway? I don't get it, why am I suddenly like a celebrity?"

"You _should_ know..." Mavius said, twitching his dual antennae, though Gohan was hardly skilled at interpreting extraterrestrial gestures, so he had no idea what, if anything, that action signified. "It feels _very_ inappropriate that one of the lost Saiyans from the Planet Earth who risked his life delivering justice to one of the worst tyrants our galaxy has ever known could remain so woefully blind to the vastly positive changes you contributed to — how fate has been cruel to you..."

Gohan got hit from a severe thumping up against his chest while a sense of alarm spiked throughout his nerves for had he latched onto the Arlian's use of words — _"cruel fate"_ — which coupled with his tone appeared to infer how something very bad might have befallen him!

"What do you mean, cruel fate?!" he echoed, panicked. "I'm fine, aren't I? I don't care if anybody knows what I've done! Really!"

"It _is_ quite tragic — and for one so young! And with such accomplishments to your name..." Inspector Mavius rasped sadly. "This will be difficult for you to accept, Son Gohan, but all the cells in your body are already dead, caused by an unforeseen and unfortunate incident during the course of all the regular duties the Galactic Patrol sees to in the Post-Frieza Galaxy."

A fierce thrill of blinding terror clutched on him, as his heartbeat shot up to what felt like _twice_ its normal rate — almost in a desperate effort to prompt him into recollection to how there could be _no_ credibility to this alien's claims — he was still alive, he just _had_ to be! This wasn't the afterlife as he had heard it and his blood still circulated oxygen through to his brain!

"But, that... can't be..." Gohan said nervously as an anxious sweat broke out over his skin. "I'm still breathing! I see, I think, I feel and I'm here on Earth, I woke up in my own bed! How can I be dead?"

"Naturally, you've already met Birdy, who we've assigned to you," Inspector Mavius went on, and upon the holographic screen now ran motion reels of a _beautiful_ young woman with striking blue eyes, very appealing features attired in skintight leotard that fairly resembled a one-piece bathing suit, which highlighted her athletic figure, with a long plait of twin-shaded hair cascading down her back, striped pink over her left side as a parallel strip of white streaked across her right side to finish off the deal. "She is actually Birdy Altera Cephon — an Ixioran-class Altirran humanoid and upper third class officer in the Galactic Patrol, ranked D."

_That's Birdy?!_ he remarked silently, and he couldn't help but find himself now struggling _not_ to get sidetracked while the image on the holographic screen spun her head over, a disarming smile aimed in his direction that almost took his breath away. _Wow, I didn't know Birdy was _beautiful_..._

He felt heat rise to his cheeks, and alien, foreign sensations similar to those that he had had to struggle with in the bath blossom through his body while accompanying the _soft_, embarrassing, though pleasurably _melting_ warmth he could distinguish a potent, nearly overpowering wave of happy flattery leaking out through the gap in the mental barrier that separated boy and girl and he _knew_ Birdy was behind it, this trace of hot emotions filling up his own veins as passionately as if he _himself_ were feeling them, for it had become as clear as day how Birdy had taken a great measure of joy from the hasty unspoken compliment, and the squishy intensity almost consumed him while further stoking his scorching sense of shy confusion which set his heartbeat to pounding fiercely behind his torso.

He swiftly latched on to the Inspector's voice, drawn back to reality with something of a stunning degree of reluctance as if he could lose himself to the wonderful mutual embrace of all that energy surging through him for a long time...

"... possesses the same cellular form as humans do," the Arlian pressed forward. "Her cell mass was reconfigured to replace your body. We have not changed your physiological functions and we've made sure that this will not affect your daily life... more or less."

_Wait, is he telling me I have to be stuck with this girl if I want to live? No, it can't be!_ And ignoring the vague hints of the girl behind his head he felt trickling through the joint mentalscape, a messy jumble he did not have the time or the inclination to sort through at the moment, instead he told the alien gingerly, "I don't get it... if I died, how were you able to do that to me? I should have just gone to the afterlife."

"This may not be known to Earth science given the comparatively primitive technology base that one has to work with but nonetheless there remains a brief period following death where the body's cells still remain active," Mavius clarified. "The scientists in our Federation are able to record the complete moment of cellular decay almost to the nanosecond. There was a window to pull you back and to revive you, which we succeeded in, but we needed a compatible donor to reattach you to, which is where Birdy comes in. She is that donor, and agreed to help give you a second chance at life, but not before we took a sample of DNA from you for our top scientists to analyze. There is a chance we can build you a non-conscious clone body to transfer your essence to, but for the time being, such a hope appears very slim."

"But you didn't have to do this!" Gohan objected, feeling horrified to hear everything that had been imparted to him. "I haven't died before! I could've been wished back when my friends use the Dragon Balls!"

Almost immediately once the statement had passed from his lips, Gohan clamped his palm firmly on his mouth, as if covering up a dirty expletive he had let utter. Too late, however, for the damage had been done, shown with the reaction Birdy dispatched him through his head, which was mostly a hybrid of amazement and comprehension like a person working on a puzzle who'd finally assembled the last piece.

_So _that_ was why Frieza went to Namek,_ she expressed keenly.

"The Dragon Balls?" Inspector Mavius repeated. "Surely you don't mean the wish orbs from the Planet Namek, do you, Gohan? For the Planet Namek doesn't exist now — reduced to space debris when the Cold Empire invaded Namek, and put their usual practice to effect."

He sighed now, suspecting that any rationale he offered to try and smooth over the rough patches would be futile, and so plowed ahead with a resignation to the inevitable but if they were working to oppose the forces of Frieza's former empire, then it might prove to not be so disastrous after all, for they certainly were entitled to answers.

"Yes, I mean the wishing orbs of Namek..." he said wearily. "We made friends with the Namekians, and once their planet was destroyed, we helped them find a new home."

"Then this would be the reason Frieza went to Planet Namek..." the Inspector marveled. "Of course, it makes sense now... but, hold for a moment." The insect-alien now straightened up taller so that he looked to go positively rigid before Gohan's sight. "How was Frieza led to the Planet Namek and the Dragon Balls in the first place? For centuries now, they've been nothing but a galactic legend."

"I, er, uh, you see..." Gohan stammered, twiddling his fingers.

"Young man! You clearly possess a crucial firsthand account to the series of events surrounding the dethroning of Lord Frieza, which has ushered in the new renaissance of galactic freedom," Inspector Mavius went on. "You and your party are responsible for it all, and should be hailed as great heroes. If you don't mind, even though it is off the record, I would very much like to take your deposition; provide us a detailed summary on the reasons that Frieza went to Namek and the specifics with how he and his most powerful soldiers were toppled."

"I, erm... I-I don't really..." he stuttered nervously.

Perhaps sensing his discomfort, the last Arlian took pity on him.

"If you'd like I could have Birdy take your deposition and report back to me at a later date?" he suggested kindly. "This is not mandatory and you shouldn't treat it that way."

Gohan expelled a breath he didn't know he had been holding.

"I think I'd like that..." he said, taking the easy way out.

Inspector Mavius dipped his head accommodatingly. "Then I will now leave you and Birdy to your own devices, and hope you will accept the most sincerest apology on behalf of the Space Federation. This really isn't how we normally handle our cases."

The tailed boy feebly waved his hand up and down.

"Not at all, don't pay it any more mind..." he said uneasily.

"Please take care of Birdy..." Mavius said beseechingly.

And with that the holographic picture derezzed into a fizzling static that winked out, leaving him alone with merely his own constitution and the mysterious new "partner" he now had gotten violently shoved into his life as he set on a course to probe deeper inside his mind to question what she intended for them to do now, when suddenly —

FLASH! _Hurrying across a corridor, the noise of her own footsteps filling her eardrums, panic seized on her veins as thunder crashed up against her ribcage, the twin-haired girl cried out from fear even while concussive detonations rocked against the structure she was housed within, and past the bubble-shaped windows which she flashed by could be seen a wild maelstrom of explosions blasting the city._

_Linked as he was to her thoughts, the observer could feel the sheer terror flooding her bloodstream, and the thoughts racing past her head, quicker than lightning in short, painful bursts._

_"Violin!" she gasped out. "Violin, where are you?! Violin!"_

_She swerved into view as she turned the corner to come upon the vision of a slender, feminine-shaped figure... and she found herself in the arms of the tall, practically doll-like woman with a splatter of some type of liquid splashed across her face, as the messy-headed woman tipped over, the force of her inertia and the strong tug of gravity dragging her down to the floor, where she lay, unmoving._

_And then..._

_"Look — there's one of them now!" came a voice that belonged to a short, white-haired, red-skinned man decked out in battle armor._

_"We can see... we're not blind, you know!" This had been spoken by a squat, four-eyed, frog-like being, dressed up in similar battle armor, with the same insignia stamped upon the breastplate._

_The young girl scrunched her face up in denial._

_"Violin..." she whispered, her heart torn into two pieces._

_"Hey Jeice, get a reading on her power level, would you?" the blue-fleshed lizard-like alien, standing as second tallest amongst the group only next to the red-headed behemoth of a man above him, rasped out like a serpent's hiss._

_"Sure, why not?" A low, sinister chuckle followed this statement, issued from the red alien called Jeice. "Might as well, Burter!"_

_And the heartbroken youth threw herself upon the still and battered form of the petite woman with the smooth features, shaking her head with a renewed fervor and a desperate scream flung outward to the hellish night._

_"Violin, please don't die!"_

_A sequence of beeps, and then Jeice reacted, plainly shocked._

_"What?! No way!" he said, jerking back. "Her power level's nearly five thousand! Why, that's stronger than most of the Saibaman crop we gave to those bleeding Saiyans!"_

_"Oho, ah," the brute of a man perched over them in his superior position grunted, waving a hand around carelessly, oblivious to the anguish she displayed. "What do you say, guys? Recoome thinks the Boss will find this girl to be the perfect recruit to the Ginyu Force!"_

_"Just like all of us, eh?" the frog-man bellowed, cruel mirth stretching over his lips as he squeezed shut all four of his eyes. "FANTASTIC!"_

_"Got a point there, Recoome..." Jeice drawled ponderously._

_"Whoever saw to her augmentations and bio-training did a good job," Burter added, his tone sounding like leaky air escaping from a tire. "Lord Frieza was right to worry about these Altirran younglings."_

_"Well, hey, he won't have a thing to concern himself with after today!" Jeice concluded, giving a malicious smirk. "Another successful job!"_

_And the four aliens, the Ginyu Force, stomped closer, predatory leers drawn upon their countenances, seemingly inexorable in their path toward her, still clutching at the fallen body of her beloved maid._

_"I, I..." the girl whimpered, clinging firmly to the body as if she were her savior, her protector, and could wring life back into her in order to stave off the inevitable that was rapidly descending on her with cold and bleak invincibility. "I'm afraid..."_

And abruptly the non-corporeal observer was snapped back to the tangible reality of sights, sound, and smells, as though he had been stretched rigid along a tightened strip of rubber-band and got yanked back while recent memory popped into his consciousness with only the briefest of delays in his processing capacity, and his eyelids fluttered, attempting to sort through the deluge, but once he had caught up, Gohan relayed a tentative murmur to Birdy.

"What... was that?" he said curiously. "That was so... so _vivid_..."

His answer came swift and to the point with no sidetracking.

_We share a body now, so of course we're going to share memories, too,_ the female presence sent back, and even through the block that prevented boy and girl from peering into the other's soul, he was able to glimpse her spirit nestled within, burning bright with fierce feeling and suppressed vulnerability of a composition he could not quite pinpoint. _I'm afraid that's going to happen from time to time._

"It was _your_ memory?" he said. "I... I-I still don't understand how all this works. It's like I can sort of _feel_ what's going through you, but not with any clarity. Though I can sense a fence between us which keeps the bulk of our feelings mostly separate... what is going on here, Birdy...? What's happening to me?!"

_Hey, this is all completely new territory to me too!_ she huffed back. _From what I've gathered, we both have to open our consciousness to each other if we want to see past surface thoughts. That's what the "wall" is, but occasionally something's going to get through._

"Oh... I think I get it..." A short, very pregnant pause. "Birdy, we..."

_Hmm?_ she responded, her tone one of empathy. _What is it, kid?_

"Are we _really_ going to be stuck with each other, at least for now?" he said baldly. "Trapped in the same body, seeing through each other's eyes?"

A return sigh informed him to the truth before she verified it.

_Yeah... I'm afraid so, kid,_ she said seriously. _It's my fault, and I've accepted the consequences._ A beat passed with just him in the space between his own ears as the "texture" and quality to her mental speak quickly altered and she articulated confidence with a bright energetic voice. _Come on, chin up! Could be a lot worse, you know! At least you're still alive._

Gohan chuckled, though there was no layer of amusement to it.

"I suppose so..." he allowed, then felt a shy, faintly self-conscious smile tug at the corners to his mouth. "I-I guess if I have to be stuck with somebody it helps that you're so upbeat and positive, right?"

_You got it, kid!_ Birdy declared proudly, sending him a private smile which set his "heart" to fluttering for a reason. _That's the spirit!_

And without any prior warning, some kind of elongated bracelet materialized on his person, wrapped around his wrist, where he sat upon the floor, which the raven-headed youth swung his head to with an astounded expression, unprepared for what had just transpired.

"Hey, what's this?" he wondered, checking out the arm it appeared on.

_It's a modulator,_ Birdy explained, even as that oh so familiar melting shiver like thousands of pleasantly rippling goosebumps running along triggering a trembling rush of palpable warmth erupted over his skin, dissolving, softening towards the Altirran girl's lean-but-muscled frame, _to keep your clothes from getting ripped up._

"Hey — wait" _— a second!_ he protested, shifting over from linguistic dialogue to inner thought speech, with a length of hair exploding from his skull and flowing down his backside, azure eyes dawning to gaze out and observe everything, their chest puffed, hips bulged ever so subtly into elegant running curves, and the change was complete, Birdy had taken over.

Unlike before in the city, however, Birdy was dressed up in the skintight wear that _hugged_ so _perfectly_ at every line and contour of her physical shape, reinforcing her feminine assets, and shooting yet another thrill of soft, squishy intensity through the frazzled hybrid and linked as the two were, to his total mortification, blazing through her veins too for the hormone-fueled boy could not control how he very keenly was aware to the _feel_ of being buried below as a part of a _female_ body; he attempted to clamp down onto these feelings, rein himself in, but inexperienced as he remained on how to regulate his thoughts and urges in a detached dream-like condition, he was not able and would have groaned if he were capable, expecting her to smack him back with the harshest tongue-lashing possible, though Birdy's reaction to the flash of sensory stimulation seemingly only amounted to a tiny smile flitting quickly past, mystifying him.

Returning to a standing posture, Birdy padded over the duranium floors and approached some variety of an inlaid container space set beside the banks of computer consoles stationed at the center of the small chamber, where she pressed a button on a control panel, and with _whoosh_ of pressurization the airtight seal broke and a drawer popped out. With this task done, she reached in and fished out a device that Gohan was well-acquainted with.

_Hey, that's a Scouter!_ he observed interestedly, even as Birdy fixed the power-scanning gadget to her ear, the lens displayed over her left pupil. _I haven't seen one of those in a while... wow, you still use it?_

"Yes, of course, why else would I have it?" Birdy posed to him.

Gohan was tempted to illustrate to her how they could be unreliable when you had to contend with an enemy skilled in the concealment of ki or that they didn't account for the treasured talent to raise power through concentrating it all into a single point, but then that got shoved to the wayside when Birdy spoke up again, voice soft, questioning, and carrying a strong weight of pleading to it.

"Please..." she said. "Please help me, kid. I'm gonna need your help on this planet if we're to survive together and to find out what Chrystella Revi is up to."

_Um... well, I don't, er..._ he said, feeling a bit taken aback. _Uh..._

"Please... Gohan," Birdy implored, lowering her pitch so that he'd _felt_ more than heard through their mutual hearing what Birdy said in using his name in the first instance since they both met the night previous.

And again he felt that same indefinable wave quiver throughout his ethereal state subsumed as he was within Birdy's consciousness, one he speculated she had also experienced rush through her body too, further heightening his complexion of embarrassed puzzlement.

"I _will_ capture Revi here," she added. "Please... help me..."

_I... well... oh gosh, Birdy..._ he grumbled silently, knowing he was trapped. _Okay, sure, you got it, I'll help. I mean, if... we went to so much trouble to beat Frieza, then it hardly seems fair if I don't make sure our galaxy is a much nicer place for it after he's gone... right?_

Birdy's answer was a burst of confident nod and heartfelt grin.

"Thank you..." she divulged, sending a mighty throb of powerful emotion flowing within their connected bloodstream so that it felt to have lit her up from tip to toe in a gently glowing upswelling of tender heat-energy. _Maybe sharing a body won't be so bad after all._ Aloud, however, she put forth instead, "I really appreciate it."

_Yeah..._ he sent back awkwardly. _But, Birdy... I, well, um..._

"Hmm?" she said, tilting her head. "What is it, kid?"

_Please be careful, okay?_ he requested. _We only have _one_ body now._

And she let out a twinge of laughter which once again set him to feeling as if someone had set free an assortment of butterflies in his stomach that, joined as the two were, Birdy went through as well, but he was getting the distinct impression she did not mind it; and once she shut her eyes to offer her reply, despite the strange situation staring them in the face and all the challenges he knew they would encounter in the new reality that had befallen them both he couldn't help except to be reassured with her presence with her next words averred.

"Whatever you say, kid!"

* * *

Atop the building situated beside the small residential structure it overlooked stood a man, draped in a trench coat and a fedora, and through the dim half-light of the stars shining down from above one would be able to perceive the haughty smirk that drifted across his facial features, reminiscent of a cat that had cornered a mouse.

_That fool Geega went about it all the wrong way,_ he mused to himself. _Gomez wants us to beat the boy? Then we need to learn everything we can about him. Know your enemy, and they will fall._

His smirk widened toward a sinister grin etched on his cheeks.

_Yes... you Earth fighters were very clever in learning to hide your power levels from our Scouters,_ he kept going. _No doubt this is how Frieza met his end back on Namek, keeping your strength suppressed so that he would get cocky, and underestimate you. Clever, but not clever enough._

And he leaped down to the concrete below with a greedy leer, and simply one thought filling up his headspace as he prepped himself to put his plan which would spell the doom of the only warrior who could interfere in their operations on this primitive backwater into motion.

_And now I've found the location to one of your friends, nobody will be able to stop me once I've used my special skill! Victory will be ours! And Miss Revi will be pleased!_


End file.
